HCS Teacher Leaders: Google Certified Educators

Hardin County Schools has been a Google Apps for Education/gSuite district for 3 years. Our teachers have been committed to exploring these tools and integrating them into their classroom to improve student learning and engagement while also increasing their efficiency as educators. After having conversations with teachers around the district it became apparent there was a need to make their commitment official with Google certification.

We created a day of professional learning called “Drivers Ed” where we would prepare AND take the exam. The spaces for this class were filled within the first 36 hours of posting. A real testament to the excitement of our teachers in Hardin County. We met Saturday morning at EC3 to begin preparing. We dismissed for lunch with plans to take the exam that afternoon. Several met at Panera, a few met at Barnes and Noble and several went home to take it after the kids went to bed. I’m currently sitting at Vibe Coffee with another handful of HCS teachers today (Sunday) who are taking their exam over a pumpkin spiced latte. 🙂 I’ve gone through 3 entire 100% battery lives on my phone…answering emails, text messages and phone calls. Our Twitter hashtag #HCSMakeItCount & #HCSinnovate are overrun with celebratory tweets of teachers who are officially certified. Whether our teachers passed or failed the exam, they gave up a weekend and threw their heart and soul into their work and hopefully learned a few things along the way. Regardless of their outcome, I’d say it’s been a successful weekend.

This task was not easy. It took a lot of dedication, preparation and TIME to earn this certification. Will you join me in celebrating our new OFFICIAL Level 1 (& a few Level 2) Google Certified Educators?!